Why I Ditched Acuity Scheduling and Switched to Breely
This post may be especially helpful for small business owners or administrators who are familiar with Acuity Scheduling—or perhaps other comparable platforms like Calendly, MindBody, Sawyer, Square, GlossGenius, Vagaro, or PushPress. Maybe this post can shorten your decision-making time about which online scheduling system you should invest your time and money into.
But first, I’ll add some context…
My Time As an Acuity Certified Expert (ACE)
In addition to my years of experience as a Squarespace website designer, I am also a former member of the Acuity Certified Expert (ACE) directory.
Click images to enlarge.
I’m in the third screen shot with my ACE colleagues. Yes, I had straighter hair back then! Ask me why…
Back before Acuity was bought out by Squarespace in 2019, there had been a tight-knit crew of employees and expert contractors who worked together to make the customer service experience outstanding. That cool, progressive tech startup energy dissipated after the acquisition, but it was an amazing experience that provided a lot of value for the Acuity user base while it lasted.
Over those years, I worked with hundreds of Acuity users, familiarizing myself with a wide variety of online scheduling use cases––along with clients’ most typical complaints about the top competitors. Generally speaking, for many years, Acuity has been in the lead for customer satisfaction by a few metrics. Its availability management features were unparalleled for customizability until recently, and the sheer number of different ways it could be twisted into different shapes and rigged up to handle different use cases, all for a much lower price than most specialized solutions, has made it a favorite for small business owners on tighter budgets.
Fast forward to this past summer, when I had just recently started developing a course that was essentially going to be a step-by-step DIY Acuity setup guide. In the midst of that process, I was contacted by someone I’ve always admired and respected: the original founder of Acuity Scheduling, Gavin Zuchlinski. He told me that he was building an expert directory for his new company called Breely, and would I like to join? I immediately paused building my Acuity course because I simply had to check this out first. I figured that the same talented and responsive leader who had made us so successful before could probably take all that he had learned in developing Acuity and do it again, but better.
I am pleased to report that my hunch was correct! After looking into Breely for a few weeks, I did something I thought I would never do: I enthusiastically ditched my Acuity subscription and moved over to Breely. Although there are a few missing features still in development––it is a brand new startup, after all––the Breely vs. Acuity Scheduling feature comparison still puts Breely in the lead by a broad margin for me. Furthermore, the pace of new development has been incredibly fast, and the team is listening to suggestions and actively implementing ideas that users are presenting. In my case, and that of a few other ACE colleagues who have jumped ship to follow the captain, improvement suggestions have been based on years of data we’ve collected while working with Acuity clients and learning their pain points.
Without further ado, I will detail Breely’s existing and upcoming solutions to common problems clients experience when using Acuity Scheduling, along with a few downsides to consider before making the switch.
FAQs About Common Acuity Scheduling ISSUES, and How Breely Solves Them
Why does the price of Acuity Scheduling keep going up without any improvements in its features?
Good news: The paid subscription tier of Breely that most small businesses would need costs just $7/mo per user. The most basic and restrictive tier of Acuity costs more than double that. For organizations with simple needs, Breely also has a FREE tier that allows scheduling for up to ten clients per month––as in free forever, and not just for a trial period. No other platform with comparable features has an offer like that!
With Acuity Scheduling, can I require the client to fill out the intake form for an appointment type or class only once, and then allow that client to bypass the form in the future?
Nope. Breely has fixed this and many more typical Acuity customization problems with its most robust addition, simply called “Forms” on the admin side. The name is a bit deceptive, though. In Breely, forms can do so much more than just collect client information! They can also serve as a marketing funnel, an automation control center, and a user experience design customization tool. I’ll cover more of that later.
Breely solves this particular problem with Acuity’s redundant intake forms––which have cost me and my clients so many hours of headaches designing imperfect workarounds––by allowing users to create forms with conditional logic. So for instance, the first section of a form could ask, “Are you a new client?” If the client answers “yes,” they can be taken straight to a custom form or waiver before scheduling. If they answer “no,” then they can skip straight to the scheduling section without having to fill out the form again. Admins could also opt to customize the client experience by creating totally separate scheduling forms with unique links for new vs. returning clients.
Can clients e-sign a waiver or contract in Acuity Scheduling?
Unfortunately, no. But good news: Breely has added a form section type for legally binding e-signatures! This means there is no need to pay additional subscription fees to have multiple platforms clumsily strung together to cover scheduling, payments, and signatures.
You can even use Breely to create a form and/or payment gateway that is completely unconnected to a client scheduling task. This means, for instance, that you could embed your standard waiver on a “Forms” page of your website without confusing clients with other steps. With the recent addition of light e-commerce functionality in Breely, you could even allow clients to purchase a few products related to your services––like yoga props, dog grooming tools, or guitar picks for use in music class––without needing to pay other expensive online shop fees.
Can I display the booking steps in a different order in Acuity Scheduling?
No, bypassing or re-ordering the client online scheduling steps is not possible in Acuity without using labor-intensive code wizardry to work around the interface’s basic structure. But Breely has fixed this issue by making it possible to simply choose your ideal order of steps, and then drag and drop your form sections into any order you prefer. For instance, if you would rather have your clients register for a class first, and then add their contact information or answer the intake questions, that custom user experience is easily achievable with Breely.
Can I make my class listings in Acuity display as a clickable calendar––the way Google Calendar events look?
Not even close, no. And unfortunately, this clunky user experience is the issue that has most often caused my fitness training studio owner clients to walk away from Acuity Scheduling. Acuity only offers a binary, global choice between simple calendar date selection or a vertical scroll of class listings in order by date, like a blog list. Neither of these is ideal for allowing clients to do a quick visual scan to find available classes that work with their schedules.
Breely, on the other hand, has added a class display option that allows clients to view a week's worth of classes at once, arranged in columns under the day. This isn’t quite the same as a monthly calendar view, but it is much more functional for quick, easy group class registration than Acuity’s options. Plus, Breely allows you to create multiple versions of your scheduler for different purposes, so you don’t have to apply class display to your 1:1 appointment booking forms.
Can I use Acuity to offer multi-day bookings for dog daycares, retreats, or rental reservations?
No, Acuity Scheduling does not allow users to set up multi-day appointments or events. However, Breely’s suite of scheduling features includes this option for the low price of $7 per month. You could offer anything from golf cart rental to petsitting reservations, collecting payment or deposits at the time of booking and automatically managing resources so they don’t get overbooked. In other words, if your meditation retreat center has three bunk bed options, you can set that rental up in Breely so that no one can ever book more than three overlapping reservations. It may not have a full set of filtering and management tools that industry leaders like AirBnB or Rover have, but it would work for certain small businesses with simpler needs.
Can Acuity Scheduling generate useful reports of client and appointment data?
Acuity’s data report options are very limited, whereas Breely can process a variety of data points that help you plan, market, and keep books for your business by allowing different combinations of filters, like custom appointment or client tags, appointment types or categories, dates, revenue––you name it, Breely probably has a way to generate a report for it or is actively developing a way.
Can I customize Acuity Scheduling’s notification emails by appointment or class type?
Yes, you can, but the back-end interface makes this a time-consuming hassle that often becomes a failure point. Breely, on the other hand, attaches all the email automation settings to each booking form, allowing you to more easily customize the emails that clients receive.
Bonus: while you’re in this Automations area, if you’re adventurous with tech, you could install a custom Webhook that fires off when clients book––such as creating a client record and starting a workflow in your CRM.
In Acuity Scheduling, can I ask all customers for their personal pronouns, license number, name they like to be called, or other important pieces of information?
Acuity Scheduling forces you to attach a separate intake form in order to ask for anything besides name, email, and phone number, but Breely allows you to create custom fields that display right alongside the default fields for all bookings—on both the client side and the admin side. You can even use these fields to build customized reports.
Ways Breely is Comparable to Acuity Scheduling
Here are some features that Breely shares with Acuity:
Packages & Subscriptions
Multi-staff calendar management
Text and Email notifications
Video conference software integration
Breely’s Development Roadmap
Here are some examples of what is coming soon on Breely’s rapidly evolving development roadmap, which I will try to keep updated as new rollouts are completed:
Wait list feature
Ban clients feature
Bulk client emailing
Gift cards & coupon codes
Marketing automation triggers
So…What’s the Catch?
Here are a few possible downsides or weaknesses to consider before choosing Breely:
Like Acuity, learning how to set up Breely can involve a steep learning curve if tech is not your strength. Fortunately, you can hire me to help!
There is no Breely app yet. However, the mobile user experience is surprisingly functional, so this one doesn’t bother me. I just dropped a shortcut on my home screen, and I treat that like an app.
The number of native integrations Breely offers is still small, but this may continue to improve over time. In the meantime, you could use something like Zapier to build custom integrations and webhooks. Or––*ahem*––you could hire me to help!
So, what are you waiting for?
Let’s set your business up on Breely together!